If her only sin was zeal in protecting the public, firing her was wrong and will send a troubling message to EPA employees all across the country who are trying to do their jobs. Clearly, it’s up to Steve Johnson to explain why he fired Mary and up to Congress to investigate the circumstances.

Despite Congressional inquiries, Administrator Johnson never explained the firing, and only left his post when Bush left office. Now, however, Sussman — who supervised Obama’s EPA transition team — is the EPA’s senior policy counsel. According to the Michigan Messenger’s Eartha Jane Melzer, “Jackson also stated that newly appointed advisor, Robert Sussman, would provide oversight on the matter.”

Cleaning up the toxic Bush legacy will take years, but this is an welcome start, especially for the residents of Saginaw Bay.

Whitehouse listed five charges of “putting the interests of corporate polluters before science and the law” in ozone, lead, soot, tailpipe emissions, and global warming pollution; and four charges of degrading “the procedures and institutional safeguards that sustain the agency;” before discussing “his apparent dishonesty in testimony before Congress”:

And in what is perhaps the gravest matter of all, I believe the Administrator deliberately and repeatedly lied to Congress, creating a false picture of the process that led to EPA’s denial of the California waiver, in order to obscure the role of the White House in influencing his decision.

Today, Senator Boxer and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, asking him to investigate whether Administrator Johnson gave false and misleading statements, whether he lied to Congress, whether he committed perjury, and whether he obstructed Congress’s investigation into the process that led to the denial of the California waiver request.

Watch it:

After listing yet more “signs of an agency corrupted in every place the shadowy influence of the Bush White House can reach,” Sen. Whitehouse concluded:

Administrator Johnson suggests a man who has every intention of driving his agency onto the rocks, of undermining and despoiling it, of leaving America’s environment and America’s people without an honest advocate in their federal government.

This behavior not only degrades his once-great agency – it drives the dagger of dishonesty deep in the very vitals of American democracy.

The American people cannot accept such a person in a position of such great responsibility. I am sorry it has come to this, but I call on Administrator Johnson to resign his position.

I yield the floor.

Watch it:

Join Sen. Whitehouse in calling for Johnson’s resignation here.

Full text of Sen. Whitehouse’s speech:

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, for most of its nearly four-decade history, Americans could look to the Environmental Protection Agency for independent leadership, grounded in science and the rule of law. It was an agency whose sole mission was to protect our environment and our health.

At its founding, EPA’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, stated unequivocally, and I quote: “EPA is an independent agency. It has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”

During the tenure of Administrator Stephen Johnson, we have seen that clear mission darkened by the shadowy handiwork of the Bush White House, trampling on science, ignoring the facts, flouting the law, kneeling before industry polluters, defying Congress and the courts, and all in the service of rank and venal purposes.

Under Administrator Johnson, EPA is an agency in distress, in dishonor, and in bad hands. Events last week have shed new light on the extent of the damage done to this great agency, but the evidence of Mr. Johnson’s dismal record has been growing for many months.

The charges are serious, and fall in three separate categories: his repeated decisions putting the interests of corporate polluters before science and the law, on questions critical to the protection of our environment and the health of the American people; his deliberate actions to degrade the procedures and institutional safeguards that sustain the agency; and his apparent dishonesty in testimony before Congress.

The particulars, Madam President, are these:

Count one: on pollution from ozone. The EPA under Administrator Johnson departed from the consistent recommendations of agency scientists, public health officials, and the agency’s own scientific advisory committees, and instead set an ozone standard that favored polluters.

The standard he set was inadequate to protect the public, especially children and the elderly, from the harmful effects of ozone pollution, from asthma and lung disease.

Indeed it was so inadequate that EPA’s own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) took the unique step of writing to the Administrator to state that they “do not endorse the new primary ozone standard as being sufficiently protective of the public health” and that the EPA’s decision “fail[ed] to satisfy the explicit stipulations of the Clean Air Act that you ensure an adequate margin of safety for all individuals, including sensitive populations.”

Setting this inadequate standard, against the evidence, was a dereliction of Administrator Johnson’s duty to the agency he leads, and of EPA’s duty to protect the health of the American people.

Count two: on pollution from lead. Administrator Johnson has proposed a standard that fails to sufficiently strengthen the regulation aimed at limiting exposure to lead pollution.

Lead has poisoned tens of thousands of children in Rhode Island, and many more all over the country. Both an independent scientific review panel and EPA’s own scientific staff recommended a lead standard of no greater than 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter, yet Administrator Johnson proposed a range of 0.1 to 0.5 micrograms.

Mr. Johnson further diluted even that lax standard by using what public health advocates have labeled “statistical trickery,” allowing polluters a longer period of time over which to average the amount of lead they discharge into the air.

Again, by not adequately protecting children from lead, Administrator Johnson was derelict in his duty to his agency.

Count three: on pollution from soot, technically called “particulate matter,” Administrator Johnson bowed to pressure from industry and failed to strengthen a decade-old standard limiting particulate matter pollution from smokestacks.

Again, the agency’s own scientific advisory committees had called for a tougher standard to protect public health. Again, Administrator Johnson yielded to polluters. Again, Administrator Johnson failed in his duty to the agency he leads.

Count four: on vehicle tailpipe emissions, Administrator Johnson denied a waiver that would have allowed the state of California, my state of Rhode Island, and many other states to enact strict restrictions on global warming pollution from automobiles.

EPA staff indicated in briefing materials that “we don’t believe there are any good arguments against granting the waiver.” EPA lawyers cautioned that all of the arguments against granting the waiver were “likely to lose in court.” Yet Administrator Johnson issued an unprecedented denial of the waiver.

I will separately discuss my grave concerns about the Administrator’s testimony on this matter (I believe he has lied to us), but for this purpose now, looking only at the substantive outcome, in ignoring the law, the dictates of science, the recommendations of his regulatory and legal staff, the role of Congress, the wishes of the states, and the welfare of the American people, Administrator Johnson failed again in his duty to the agency he leads.

Count five: on global warming pollution, in defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. E.P.A., Administrator Johnson has failed to take action after the Court’s ruling that EPA has the authority, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that pollute our air.

It is now nearly 18 months since the Court’s decision, and the EPA has shown no indication it will act before President Bush leaves office. In ignoring a ruling of this nation’s highest court empowering him to act on a matter important to the public health of Americans, Administrator Johnson again failed in his duty to the agency he leads.

But it was not enough for Administrator Johnson to rule for the polluters on pollutant after pollutant.

Administrator Johnson has also systematically dismantled institutional safeguards and processes that protect his agency’s integrity and guide its mission.

Jonathan Cannon, who served at EPA during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, warns of “extreme friction within the agency and institutional damage … demoralizing the legal staff, and … further separating staff from the political leadership at the agency.” We saw similar sabotage of institutional safeguards in the Gonzales Department of Justice, and this institutional damage raises four further charges:

Count six: on the question of the Agency’s legal integrity, under Administrator Johnson, the EPA offered legal arguments for its insufficient standards so shallow they provoked ridicule by the courts that heard them. When EPA tried to defend its weak mercury “cap and trade” system, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals – hardly a liberal bench – accused the agency of employing the “logic of the Queen of Hearts” in attempting to evade the intent of Congress and the clear meaning of the Clean Air Act.

The same court said EPA’s argument under the Clean Air Act allowing power companies to avoid upgrading their pollution control technologies made sense only in “a Humpty Dumpty world.” In adopting Wonderland legal analysis that contravenes the clear will of Congress and embarrasses his agency before the courts, Administrator Johnson failed in his duty to uphold the mission of the agency he leads.

Count seven: on the integrity of EPA’s scientific advisory boards, Administrator Johnson did not just ignore their recommendations. He willingly allowed those panels to be infiltrated by the very industries they are meant to regulate and control.

For example, an employee of Exxon Mobil served on the panel to assess the carcinogenicity of ethyl oxide – a chemical manufactured by Exxon Mobil.

Another scientist received research support from Dow Agro and served on that panel, even though ethyl oxide is also manufactured by Dow Agro.

A scientist whose research was funded by American Cyanamid and CYTEC sits on the EPA panel on acrylamide – which is manufactured by American Cyanamid and marketed by CYTEC. EPA didn’t see any conflict of interest.

By way of contrast, at the beck and call of the American Chemistry Council, an industry lobby group, Administrator Johnson removed Dr. Deborah Rice, a prominent toxicologist, from a scientific review board investigating chemicals used in common plastic goods.

The industry argued that she had a conflict of interest. Incredibly, the conflict of interest was that, at a public hearing in Maine as a representative of the state’s government, she had stated her professional opinion regarding the dangers associated with these chemicals, and the industry didn’t like her professional opinion.

Not only was Dr. Rice removed, but in a particularly Orwellian maneuver, the fact that she had ever been on the panel was stricken from the advisory committee’s records.

In packing EPA’s scientific panels to please industry polluters, Administrator Johnson is guilty of a particularly chilling dereliction of his duty to the agency he leads.

Count eight: a report issued on April 23 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled “Interference at the EPA,” uncovered widespread political influence in EPA decisions. The report found that 60 percent of EPA career scientists surveyed had personally experienced at least one incident of political interference during the past five years.

The report documented, among other things, that many EPA scientists have been directed to inappropriately exclude or alter information from EPA science documents, or have had their work edited in a manner that resulted in changes to their scientific findings.

The survey also revealed that EPA scientists have often objected to, or resigned or removed themselves from, EPA projects because of pressure to change scientific findings.

Allowing this corrosive political influence to persist among the career scientists at EPA is yet another dereliction of Administrator Johnson’s duty to the agency he leads.

Count nine: Administrator Johnson has twisted the very administrative procedures of EPA, to allow the White House Office of Management and Budget secret influence over agency decisionmaking.

For example, the IRIS process for determining the toxicity of chemicals allows OMB three separate chances to exert its dark influence, at the beginning, in the middle, and again at the end. In the words of the GAO, this process is “inconsistent with the principle of sound science that relies on, among other things, transparency.”

This is not just a potential concern. The current chair of EPA’s clean air scientific advisory panel has testified that the ozone standard was “[set]…by fiat behind closed doors,” that the entire agency scientific process was “for naught,” that “the OMB and the White House set the standard, even though theoretically it was set by the EPA Administrator,” and that as a result, “Willful ignorance triumphed over sound science.” That is her testimony.

In manipulating his agency processes to let willful ignorance triumph over sound science, Administrator Johnson has again been derelict in his duties to this once-proud agency.

The third and final category of charges relates to Johnson’s relationship to Congress. In defiance of his charge under the Constitution of the United States, Administrator Johnson has personally and repeatedly refused to cooperate with Congress in our efforts to conduct proper oversight of the executive branch.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has repeatedly requested documents in connection with EPA’s denial of the California waiver and its failure adequately to regulate ozone pollution, in an effort to determine whether the White House improperly influenced these decisions.

Administrator Johnson has rebuffed these requests. He has repeatedly declined to appear before the EPW Committee to explain his agency’s policies, and when he has appeared, he has resorted to canned, stock, evasive answers in response to legitimate questions about political influence infiltrating his agency.

Just last week, he refused to appear before the Judiciary Committee, on which I also serve, for a hearing to look further into his failure to cooperate with Congress and provide documents and other information we have sought.

And in what is perhaps the gravest matter of all, I believe the Administrator deliberately and repeatedly lied to Congress, creating a false picture of the process that led to EPA’s denial of the California waiver, in order to obscure the role of the White House in influencing his decision.

Today, Senator Boxer and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, asking him to investigate whether Administrator Johnson gave false and misleading statements, whether he lied to Congress, whether he committed perjury, and whether he obstructed Congress’s investigation into the process that led to the denial of the California waiver request. I ask unanimous consent that the letter and its attached recitation be made part of the record as an exhibit to these remarks.

Madam President, there is more. These are not isolated counts, but signs of an agency corrupted in every place the shadowy influence of the Bush White House can reach.

Administrator Johnson forced the resignation of EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Midwest, Mary Gade, who was locked in a struggle with corporate polluter Dow Chemical Co. The circumstances are highly suspicious. Now, Administrator Johnson has replaced Ms. Gade with a former attorney for the automobile industry, whose record on behalf of the environment has been described as “horrible.”

The EPA under Administrator Johnson has reduced the reporting burdens on industries that release toxic chemicals into our land, sea and air.

It has weakened enforcement and monitoring by opening fewer criminal investigations, filing fewer lawsuits, and levying fewer fines against corporate polluters.

It has failed to protect agency employees who pointed out problems, reported legal violations, or attempted to correct factual misrepresentations made by their superiors, and has fostered an atmosphere where agency scientists fear reprisals.

And in the face of widespread criticism that his agency is in crisis, and that he is a pawn of the White House and its allies in polluting industries, Administrator Johnson’s only response is to label those concerned – many of whom are dedicated career employees of his agency – as “yammering critics.” A man after Spiro Agnew’s own heart.

The EPA has a vital mission. When this great agency is weakened and its work subverted by political interference, there is a great cost to this country.

When EPA scientists and career employees become discouraged as their voices go unheard, there is a great cost to our country.

When the people of America lose faith that the Environmental Protection Agency can live up to its name, there is a great cost to our country.

And when those who were chosen to serve this country instead serve themselves, their political allies, and their patrons, there is a great and lasting cost to this country. It is a failure of integrity, and that is a failure we can no longer afford.

We demand integrity – democracy demands integrity – of our public officials, not just because integrity is an abstract moral good, but because democracy fails without it.

Integrity sustains our democracy in at least three ways.

The first is integrity to the truth. In government, when the facts are clear enough for responsible people to act, it is a failure of integrity to fail to confront those facts. As the late Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, famously said, “You are entitled to your own opinion; you are not entitled to your own facts.”

America has traditionally been characterized by candid and practical assessment of the facts, a can-do attitude about responding to those facts, and bold decision-making to find our way through those facts. Practical, can-do, optimistic, realistic – that’s the American way.

When government doesn’t face the truth about the facts, it will almost certainly fail to meet the demands of the moment and fail to serve the interests of our people. That is what is happening now at EPA. They simply won’t face facts plain to any responsible person.

But facts are stubborn things. They do not yield to ideology or influence. They do not care about your politics. Unanswered, they stand, getting worse, and eventually the piper must be paid.

If facts aren’t candidly, realistically, and responsibly faced, not only will the problem get worse, but the very capacity of government to address problems candidly, realistically, and responsibly will itself degrade when not put to use. So there are ugly, lasting consequences when government officials fail at their obligation to meet the truth head on.

Another integrity is to honesty. As failures of truth have a harsh cost in government, so do failures in honesty.

I have sworn in new Assistant United States Attorneys. I have sworn in new state Assistant Attorneys General. I have presided at nomination hearings.

Every time, I have seen the same thing – a little spark of fire; a moral fire sparked when someone makes a choice to earn less money than they could otherwise, to work a lot harder than they would otherwise, to dare greater challenges than they might otherwise, all in order to serve a larger purpose, to serve an ideal, to serve America.

This spark of fire inspires young men and women to tackle problems that may seem unmanageable. This spark of fire keeps people at their desks late into the night when others have gone home to their families. This spark of fire brings idealism and principle to decisions, and illuminates a moral path in the complexities of government.

The value in government of that spark of fire, burning in the hearts of a thousand men and women – our real thousand points of light – is immeasurable. EPA is sustained by that spark of fire.

But this spark of fire is quenched in the toxic atmosphere of dishonesty when guiding principles are “help your friends,” “please your patron,” “dodge your responsibilities,” and “fudge the truth.” Dishonesty and idealism do not cohabit.

The third integrity is competence. This is a vital integrity. If we are to address the present and looming problems a new administration will have to solve — a war without end in Iraq, an economy in a sickening slide, a broken health care system, a country divided into two increasingly separate Americas, a public education system that is failing, the dangerous weight of an alarming national debt, foreign policies that have unhinged us from responsible world opinion, bickering and irresolution on problems like immigration and global warming – we must see competence as a core integrity.

We must demand competence of government officials as a bare minimum, a core necessity. Unfortunately, as one discouraged official has complained, “In the Bush administration, loyalty is the new competence.”

Madam President, Administrator Stephen Johnson is a failure in all these dimensions.

From everything we have seen, Administrator Johnson has done the bidding of the Bush Administration and its political allies without hesitation or question.

He has tried to cover up his dereliction of duty with evasive and discreditable testimony; he has acted without regard for the law or the determinations of the courts; he has damaged the mission, the morale, and the integrity of his great department; and he has betrayed his solemn duty to Americans who depend on him to protect their health, particularly our very youngest and our very oldest, those whose vulnerability is greatest.

Administrator Johnson suggests a man who has every intention of driving his agency onto the rocks, of undermining and despoiling it, of leaving America’s environment and America’s people without an honest advocate in their federal government.

This behavior not only degrades his once-great agency – it drives the dagger of dishonesty deep in the very vitals of American democracy.

The American people cannot accept such a person in a position of such great responsibility. I am sorry it has come to this, but I call on Administrator Johnson to resign his position.

I yield the floor.

The Wonk Room has extensively reported on her resignation and compared it to the politicized firings of U.S. Attorneys under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Today, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson:

We are writing to request from you full information of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Gade’s departure. As you know, Congress and the American people expect EPA to enforce vigorously our public health protections — and to preserve the integrity of the enforcement program by excluding politics from such activities. We are troubled by reports suggesting that there was a link between her efforts to assure an aggressive cleanup by Dow and her allegedly forced departure, and are seeking answers from you to key questions.

Boxer and Whitehouse serve on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and have oversight of the EPA. They have requested answers to their questions and all related documents “no later than May 27, 2008.”

Administrator Johnson, now mired in scandal, has refused to appear before Congress for over a month. In April he went to Australia. Upon his return he found himself unable to testify, due to “ongoing back issues.”

The EPA currently is refusing to honor multiple subpoenas for other documents.

Read the full letter below:

Dave Camp (R-MI)

But Michael Hawthorne reports for the Chicago Tribune that there is at least one official who disagrees:

“In 20 years of public life I have never encountered a more unprofessional, vindictive and insulting government official,” said U.S. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), whose wife is a former Dow attorney.

What could possibly motivate the nine-term Republican congressman representing Michigan’s Fourth District to make such a strongly worded statement?

Dave Camp Is A Dow Chemical Millionaire. Camp graduated from Midland Dow High School in 1971. In 1994, he married Nancy Keil, an attorney who was working for Dow Chemical at the time. Based on financial disclosure statments, Rep. Dave Camp is worth $3.6 million to $6.9 million, including Dow Chemical Co. stock valued at $500,001 to $1 million and his wife Nancy’s Dow Chemical 401(k) at $100,001 to $250,000. [Detroit News, 7/7/06]

Dow Chemical Fills Dave Camp’s Campaign Coffers. In his freshman term in 1990, Camp received “more than $100,000 from Dow Chemical sources,” the most money any member of Congress received then from any single company. Camp has received at least $298,685 in campaign contributions from Dow Chemical in his career. [Los Angeles Times, 7/1/1992; Center for Responsive Politics]

Dave Camp Scores Zero On The Environment. The League of Conservation Voters gave Rep. Camp (R-MI) a zero rating for the 110th Congress based on twenty key environmental votes this session. He has not scored above 10% in the last decade. [LCV Scorecard]

Dave Camp Believes In Federal Taxdollars Paying To Clean Up The Great Lakes. Press releases on Rep. Camp’s website call for the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act to be funded at $20 million a year instead of $16 million, promote the passage of the $1.71 billion Water Quality Investment Act, and celebrate the $2.75 million in local watershed earmarks he included in the 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. Dow Chemical, the 169th largest company in the world, had sales of $53.5 billion in 2007. [Rep. Camp press releases; Forbes.com]

Dave Camp is only one of several Michigan political officials with strong ties to Dow Chemical who have fought environmental regulation of its dioxin pollution. On September 29, 2004, Camp told the Detroit Free Press, “We have a party responsible for the contamination who wants to do the right thing.” Somehow, Dow Chemical has still managed to avoid cleaning up the waterways downstream of its plant, which it has been operating since 1897.

Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.

He further reported that one of those officials had recently assessed her performance as “outstanding“:

Five months ago, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official gave Mary Gade a performance rating of “outstanding.” On Thursday, the same official told her to quit or be fired as the agency’s top regulator in the Midwest.

As the EPA organizational chart indicates, the regional administrators report directly to the office of EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson:

EPA Organizational Structure (Detail)

So who can the “two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson” who “took away her powers” be? The following are the most likely suspects.

Marcus C. Peacock

The only person under Administrator Johnson with official authority over the regional administrators is Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock. As his EPA biography states, “From 2001 until August 2005, Mr. Peacock served as an Associate Director at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).” There, he worked under OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) administrator John Graham, described by OMBWatch as “The man behind the curtain.” While at OMB, Peacock created the Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART), a complex assessment system by which the OMB exerts authority over every action of Executive Branch agencies, including the EPA.

EPA staff scientists in regional offices surveyed by the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed directly at the OMB and Marcus Peacock as responsible for political interference. Here are just a few of the comments:

And although the administration chose Steve Johnson (a career scientist) as EPA Administrator, they sent Graham henchman Marcus Peacock over to keep a close eye on EPA as Deputy Administrator.

Control the power of OMB to a reasonable level – OMB does more to waste time and taxpayer dollars than any other organization in the government.

Further, the influence of other agencies, particularly OMB significantly affects the actions of specific individual program offices, which amounts to direct oversight of almost everything EPA does.

The current Administrator is a puppet operated by CEQ and OMB.

Luis A. Luna

The official who called Gade’s performance “outstanding” and then gave her the ultimatum is most likely Assistant Administrator Luis Luna, who runs the Office of Administration and Resources Management, or his subordinate Kenneth Venuto, Director of the Office of Human Resources. When Luna was sworn into his post on May 2, 2005, Johnson said, “This office touches the work of every EPA employee.” Luna is responsible for outsourcing nearly five percent of the EPA workforce. A Cuban emigré, Luna has worked on the Hill and in various executive branch agencies for decades. Most notably he was a top aide and the campaign manager for Rep. Bob Bauman (R-MD), the chairman of the American Conservative Union who was voted out of office after a sex scandal involving an underage boy. Luna ran a failed campaign to take Bauman’s seat in the 1990 Republican primary. His wife, Bonnie Luna, was a delegate for George W. Bush at the 2000 Republican National Convention.

But official responsibility lies with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. EPA press secretary Jonathan Shradar — who won Fishbowl DC’s “hottest male in PR” vote with the aid of a Craigslist ad when a spokesman for the Department of Energy in 2007 — told Gristmill’s Kate Sheppard that Johnson “made the decision.” His statement:

This is a role that serves at pleasure of the administration, and [EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson] makes the decision of keeping people in place, and he made the decision. It’s a politically appointed position, just like mine. We have the expectation that we’re here to do a job, and we serve at the pleasure of the president, or in this case the pleasure of the administrator.

As Crooks and Liars noted during in 2007, the “pleasure of the president” was a Bush administration talking point during the U.S. Attorney scandal. Watch the Daily Show’s take:

As the New York Times reported in an April 19, 1983 story, Dow Chemical’s illegal attempts to avoid responsibility for its dioxin contamination began as far back as 1965:

Almost 20 years ago, scientists from four rival chemical companies attended a closed meeting at the Dow Chemical Company’s headquarters. The subject was the health hazards of dioxin, a toxic contaminant found in a widely used herbicide that the companies manufactured.

Shortly after the meeting, in Midland, Mich., on March 24, 1965, one of those attending wrote in a memorandum that Dow did not want its findings about dioxin made public because the situation might ”explode” and generate a new wave of government regulation for the chemical industry.

The “new wave” of regulations did come to pass, with the Environmental Protection Agency established in 1970 to enforce those laws. However, under President Ronald Reagan, the Environmental Protection Agency colluded with Dow Chemical to hide its responsibility for dioxin contamination:

Three weeks ago, for example, agency officials in Chicago told the Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that their superiors in Washington ordered them to change an important report on dioxin to comply with the wishes of Dow.

The key deletion from the report was the following central conclusion about Dow’s Midland plant: ”Dow’s discharge represented the major source, if not the only source, of TCDD contamination found in the Tittabawassse and Saginaw Rivers and Saginaw Bay in Michigan.”

The Reagan administration doggedly attempted to cover up the scandal. As Maureen Dowd reported in Time Magazine in March 1983, President Reagan “tried to down-play the problems, blaming the press for exaggerating the story.” However, a congressional investigation exposed the extent of Dow Chemical’s influence over the EPA, leading to the dismissal of EPA Administrator Anne McGill Burford and 12 other officials:

Anne McGill Burford, for example, made at least two trips to Midland, Mich., in her 22 months as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Rita M. Lavelle, the former head of the Government program to clean up toxic waste dumps, met at least 14 times with Dow officials in the 11 months she held office.

Mrs. Burford, Miss Lavelle and 11 other political appointees recently resigned or were dismissed amid Congressional inquiries on allegations that the agency’s toxic waste program had been mishandled.

Like the dioxins still contaminating the waters of Saginaw Bay, it appears that Dow Chemical’s toxic influence over the Environmental Protection Agency continues to this very day.

(HT: Dave Dempsey, the Great Lakes Blogger and prominent Michigan environmentalist.)

UPDATE: As Michael Hawthorne reports in the Chicago Tribune, Dow Chemical and the business lobby are still fighting the public relations war:

“There is all of this mystique about dioxin,” said John Musser, a Dow spokesman. “Just because it’s there doesn’t mean there is an imminent health threat.” [...]

Bob VanDeventer, president of the Saginaw County Chamber of Commerce, said local leaders are trying to fight the perception that dioxin makes the area unsafe. He argued “not one illness” can be attributed to dioxin and insisted the only way someone could be exposed to dioxin is if they “eat the dirt.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just spoke on the Senate floor about Gade’s firing. Whitehouse compared her firing with the U.S. Attorney scandal that enveloped the Department of Justice and led to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s resignation:

We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything that may have gone on between her office and Dow Chemical. But from everything that we’ve heard and seen so far, it looks like déjà vu all over again. From an administration that values compliance with its political agenda more than it values the trust or the best interests of the American people. Last year we learned that this is an administration that wouldn’t hesitate to fire capable federal prosecutors when they wouldn’t toe an improper party line. Today it seems that the Bush Administration might have once again removed a highly qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep was to disagree with the political bosses.

Watch it:

Sen. Whitehouse also announced that he is conducting an oversight hearing into the politicization of the EPA and the circumstances of Gade’s dismissal next Wednesday. The last time EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified before Sen. Whitehouse, he put in a shameful performance, leading Whitehouse to state:

In my short time in Washington, I didn’t think I would again encounter a witness as evasive and unresponsive as Alberto Gonzales was during our investigation of the U.S. Attorney scandal. Unfortunately, today EPA Administrator Johnson stooped to that low standard.

UPDATE: Kate Sheppard at Gristmill writes that, according to an Energy and Commerce Committee spokesperson, Committee Chair John Dingell (D-MI) “is concerned about this and has asked his oversight staff to look into it.”

UPDATE II: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-MI) noted that Gade stepped down “the same day that Indiana forwarded its final draft air permit for the BP Whiting plant to EPA Region 5 for its review.” He has “asked for a meeting with the Administrator of EPA so that I can better understand why Ms. Gade has been placed on administrative leave,” and called on President Bush to “act swiftly to fill this important position with an administrator who will protect Lake Michigan and the communities that surround it.”

Sen. Whitehouse’s full remarks on politics at EPA, as prepared for delivery:

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, for much of last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee was engaged in a troubling inquiry. We were trying to determine whether the Bush administration had fired several United States Attorneys for political reasons – because they were not “loyal Bushies.”

That inquiry continues. But over its course, the incompetence and misjudgments it uncovered cost a number of Justice Department officials their jobs – including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who made clear that he put loyalty to the President before the faithful exercise of his office. It also cost this proud Department the morale of its staff and the trust of the American people, who were left to wonder whether federal prosecutions in this country arose out of the pursuit of justice or the pursuit of political advantage.

This morning, we awoke to the news that the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for the Midwest, Mary Gade, was forced to resign in the midst of a heated debate over dioxin contamination in waters near Michigan. According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, Ms. Gade invoked emergency powers last year to force Dow Chemical, headquartered in Michigan, to clean up several areas saturated with the toxic chemical, a dangerous carcinogen which was a byproduct of Agent Orange.

She later broke off negotiations with the company on a more comprehensive cleanup, citing concerns that Dow had been reluctant to take steps to protect health and wildlife. At that point, the Tribune’s report says, the company asked EPA officials in Washington to intervene, though Dow said yesterday it had nothing to do with Ms. Gade’s dismissal. The paper wrote Ms. Gade said that high-ranking EPA officials “repeatedly questioned her aggressive action against Dow.” It quoted Ms. Gade as saying: “There is no question this is about Dow.”

We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything that may have gone on between EPA and Dow Chemical. But from all we have heard and seen, Mary Gade’s story seems like déjà vu all over again from an administration that values compliance with a political agenda over the best interests of the American people.

Last year, we learned that this administration would not hesitate to fire federal prosecutors who didn’t toe the party line. Today, it seems that the Bush administration has once again to remove a highly-qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep, it appears, was to disagree with her political bosses.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, the story of Mary Gade is not only a distressing signal that the Bush administration may again be making hiring and firing decisions based on political loyalty. This is also just the latest in a growing pile of evidence of a troubling and destructive force at work within our government, one with serious consequences for our environment, our natural resources, and our public health.

We’ve always known that the Bush Administration was no friend to our environment. Over and over again for seven long years, this administration has put forward, under false flags, policies that would do great harm to the environment. From a Clear Skies initiative that would increase air pollution, to a national energy policy written by oil industry lobbyists, the Bush approach to environmental protection has been Orwellian.

That pattern continues even to this day. Not long ago, President Bush stood in the White House Rose Garden and announced what his administration characterized as a new strategy to address climate change. With Americans all over this country crying out for a bold, visionary plan to tackle the threat of global warming, a problem that threatens to engulf this nation and the entire world within generations if nothing is done, President Bush’s proposal was neither “new” nor a “strategy.”

Instead, the President announced what he called “a new national goal:” voluntary action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Let me say that again: voluntary action to reduce emissions by 2025.

Mr. President, there are a couple of problems with that approach. First: the President’s so-called strategy would allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise for another 17 years – even though overwhelming scientific evidence indicates that unless we take immediate action to cut global warming pollutants, we might be too late to prevent the most serious impacts of global climate change.

Second: President Bush offered no initiatives that might reduce emissions now or in the future, and made clear that on his watch, the United States Government will never require polluters to make such reductions. But as every American not working in the Bush administration understands, voluntary action, without strength of will or force of law, simply isn’t enough to tackle the magnitude of this problem.

And finally, even as the President announced this empty, so-called renewed commitment to fighting global warming, his administration reiterated that it will oppose a specific, detailed plan for addressing the climate change problem that the Senate will likely take up after the Memorial Day recess – the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act.

This trifecta would merely be laughable, were the situation not so serious. And there is always the distasteful possibility, given this administration’s long and destructive history of disregard for environmental concerns, that this is a stalking horse, intended to prevent real progress on climate change; a way to leave this problem, like so many others, for the next President to solve.

Regrettably, the President’s announcement is also a stunning failure of leadership in a world community that is quickly growing unaccustomed to American leadership.

* * *

Mr. President, we’ve known for a long time that politics of special interests is at the bottom of this, and that the Bush White House has repeatedly interfered with the decision-making process at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, in thrall to the checkbooks of the oil companies, the gas companies, the chemical companies, the timber companies, the coal companies, and the auto companies.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw new evidence of how deeply this corrosive political influence has seeped within EPA – the primary federal agency charged with protecting our environment and public health. A report issued on April 23 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled “Interference at the EPA,” is a scathing indictment of the decision-making process at EPA from those who know it best: the agency’s career scientists. The report consisted largely of a survey of EPA scientists and found that 60 percent of those surveyed had personally experienced at least one incident of political interference during the past five years. The report documents, among many other things, that many EPA scientists have been directed to inappropriately exclude or alter information from EPA science documents, or have had their work edited in a manner that resulted in changes to their scientific findings. The survey also revealed that EPA scientists have often objected to, or resigned or removed themselves from, EPA projects because of pressure to change scientific findings. Mr. President, the conclusion could not be clearer: EPA is an agency in crisis.

Once upon a time, anyone working at EPA could be proud of their agency’s reputation as the international gold standard in the area of environmental protection. Indeed, for most of its 40-year history, all Americans could place their trust EPA’s independent, science-based leadership in safeguarding our natural resources and our public health. In a 1970 press release setting forth the agency’s mission, its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, stated EPA’s role unequivocally. I quote:

“EPA is an independent agency. It has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”

Administrator Ruckelshaus was a Republican, appointed by President Nixon. Yet both he and the President who appointed him intended EPA to be immune from political pressure, to be guided by the twin lodestars of law and science in discharging that “critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”

However, in recent years and especially during the tenure of Administrator Johnson, we have seen EPA’s leadership, in cahoots with its White House allies, despoil these basic principles of independence and scientific integrity. Here are only a few examples from the long bill of particulars that indicts the leadership of this once-vaunted agency:

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has falsified data and fabricated results of studies regarding the safety of the air around the site of the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11th.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has selectively edited government reports, including the EPA’s 2003 Report on the Environment, to support uncertainty in climate change science, placing the imprimatur of the government of the United States of America on fringe views soundly rejected by essentially the entire world scientific community.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has routinely tampered with regulatory and scientific processes to achieve results sought by industry, at the expense of our public health and environment. For example, in 2004, EPA allowed North Dakota to alter the way it measured air quality, to bring Theodore Roosevelt National Park into compliance with air quality standards without actually reducing pollution.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has hidden, suppressed, and delayed the release of scientific findings in order to affect the impacts of EPA decisions, as in the case of a 2002 report on the effects of mercury on children’s health that EPA delayed for nine months and released only after it was leaked to the media.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has disregarded legally mandated scientific and administrative procedures, as in the case of the agency’s failure to abide by the Supreme Court’s recent decision on regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has stacked the EPA’s leadership and its advisory committees with industry allies, removing the respected scientists who argued for stronger public protections. A prime example of this is the removal, at the request of the industry lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, of toxicologist Deborah Rice from an EPA toxics advisory committee. Dr. Rice had argued for more stringent EPA standards for regulating certain chemicals used in commercially available plastics products. Not only was Dr. Rice removed the panel in a particularly Orwellian maneuver, but the fact that Dr. Rice had ever been on the panel was stricken from the panel’s records.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has ignored the recommendations of career staff and scientists when they collided with White House political imperatives, as in the case of the agency’s decision on the so-called California wavier.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has reduced enforcement of environmental regulations by opening fewer criminal investigations and filing fewer lawsuits against corporate polluters.

– The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has not only failed to protect, but sought reprisals against, agency employees who pointed out problems, reported legal violations, and attempted to correct factual misrepresentations made by their superiors. Amazingly, the EPA’s office of general counsel has invoked the doctrine of sovereign immunity against whistleblowers suing the agency because of actions taken by the agency in reprisal for whistleblowing activity.

– And the George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has had its lawyering literally mocked by U.S. appellate courts — which in one case, condemned EPA’s defense of its regulation as possible “only in a Humpty-Dumpty world,” and in another case, accused the agency of “deploying the logic of the Queen of Hearts” from Alice in Wonderland in its interpretation of the law.

It makes one’s skin crawl to see the ways in which EPA’s leadership under the Bush Administration has put the interests of big business CEOs and lobbyists before the health and welfare of our environment and the American people.

The consequences of this are dire.

First, in a world that presents complex challenges to our public health, our environment, and our national security, the elevation of corporate interests over independent, science-based decision-making threatens America’s ability to respond effectively, and to provide the kind of leadership that the world expects and the American people deserve.

Second, the Administration’s conduct has demoralized EPA’s professional workforce – the scientists, lawyers, and regulatory experts to whom EPA owes its reputation as a champion of environmental protection and who, time and time again during this Administration, have seen their expert counsel set aside in favor of a partisan political agenda.

Third, President Bush and this Administration have compromised the faith of the American people in the integrity of their government. The President’s eagerness to do the bidding of the special interests and the Administrator’s willingness to kowtow to the White House, to the detriment of sound public policy, only confirm what too many in this country most fear: that the United States of America is no longer governed by and for the people. When policy is made for special interests and not for the public good, America is left weaker. No matter our partisan or ideological standings, I hope that no one in this room would want to do such a thing to this great country.

The Bush Administration has done lasting harm to our environment and the confidence of the American people. Next Wednesday, May 7th, at 9:30 a.m., I will join Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, for an oversight hearing to look into the many actions by this Bush Administration, and its EPA Administrator, which seem to be so badly at odds with the recommendations of the agency’s scientists and the best interests of the American people.

Chairman Boxer has been dogged in her pursuit of the truth behind the machinations of EPA’s leadership and the Bush White House, and her leadership will be critical as we try to get to the bottom of this. We plan to ask tough questions — and we expect honest answers — because the American people deserve an Environmental Protection Agency that lives up to its name.

Mary Gade

In a highly unusual move, EPA Administrator Steve Johnson reportedly stripped the Administrator of EPA Region 5, Mary Gade, of her powers and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. Mary is a loyal Republican and one of the most seasoned and experienced environmental policy-makers in the country.

In addition to many years as a career employee in Region 5, Mary was appointed by Republican Governor Jim Edgar to head the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. She served in that position with distinction, chairing the multi-state Ozone Transport Assessment Group which recommended groundbreaking controls of NOx emissions throughout the Eastern US. Mary was also the head and co-founder of the Environmental Council of the States, an influential and respected group of top environmental officials from state agencies.

While the facts are still coming to light, Mary has said that EPA political leaders wanted to block the Region from taking aggressive action to clean up dioxin contamination near the Dow Chemical facility in Midland, Michigan and removed her from her position because she would not go along. This would be an unprecedented and highly irregular action by EPA political management. The regions traditionally have broad discretion in handling cleanups.

To remove a Regional Administrator because of a disagreement over policy at an individual site is unheard of.

If Mary stood up for her career staff and pushed for strong action to abate contamination, she was only performing her job under the environmental laws as she saw it. It is hard to believe that Mary, an astute and successful lawyer in private practice with a long track record of implementing the federal contamination laws, would overstep legal boundaries. If her only sin was zeal in protecting the public, firing her was wrong and will send a troubling message to EPA employees all across the country who are trying to do their jobs. Clearly, it’s up to Steve Johnson to explain why he fired Mary and up to Congress to investigate the circumstances.

A staunch Bush supporter, Mary said in 2000 that “Governor Bush in two terms has put together a stronger bipartisan record on conservation and the environment than Al Gore has in twenty-plus years in Washington, D.C., precisely because Bush puts action and results above talk and posture.” Mary’s firing sadly demonstrates that “action and results” are not encouraged or rewarded at Mr. Bush’s EPA.

Now it seems the EPA is following the Department of Justice’s efforts to rid itself of staffers who are not “loyal Bushies.”

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Bush administration forced its top environmental regulator in the Midwest to quit Thursday after months of internal bickering about dioxin contamination downstream from Dow Chemical’s world headquarters in Michigan.

In an interview with the Tribune, Mary Gade said two top political appointees at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington stripped her of her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.

As a congressional investigation revealed this week, the EPA’s regulation of toxic chemicals like dioxin has been corrupted by interference by the White House. But this case is even more egregious:

For the past year, Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. [. . .]

Though regional EPA administrators typically have wide latitude to enforce environmental laws, Gade drew fire from officials in Washington last month after she sent contractors to test soil in a Saginaw neighborhood where Dow had found high dioxin levels.

She said top lieutenants to Stephen Johnson, the national EPA administrator, repeatedly questioned her aggressive action against Dow, which long ago acknowledged it is responsible for the dioxin contamination but has resisted federal and state involvement in cleanup plans.

Gade told the Chicago Tribune, “There’s no question this is about Dow.” When Johnson appointed Gade to her position in 2006, he praised “her impressive environmental career,” saying, “Mary is well-prepared to lead the Agency’s largest regional office.”

UPDATE: In 2000, Mary Gade wrote optimistically about environmental policy in a Bush administration:

To the question of politics — or, I hope, the lack thereof. A successful twenty-first-century environmental policy will require a leader who can reach across partisan lines and bridge political differences on what should be the ultimate nonpartisan issue. It also will require a President who recognizes that environmental issues don’t respect national borders and who can credibly address these complex issues on the international stage. I confess, I’m a Republican and a supporter of Texas Governor George W. Bush. I believe Governor Bush in two terms has put together a stronger bipartisan record on conservation and the environment than Al Gore has in twenty-plus years in Washington, D.C., precisely because Bush puts action and results above talk and posture.

UPDATE II: Via Daily Kos user LakeSuperior, Michigan Environmental Council President Lana Pollack calls Mary Gade “woman of unquestioned credentials and integrity who was doing her job enforcing our environmental laws”:

If Mary Gade were indeed forced out because she was willing to enforce environmental laws against Dow Chemical, then it is a travesty.

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